Matthew Perry was the nicest, funniest, saddest and most famous guy I never got drunk with

We were scheduled to meet, late afternoon, in the private, snug bar at the Covent Garden Hotel, Seven Dials. Bottles of fine wine, rare cognac, single malt whisky and imported Russian vodka lined the walls. No bar staff present, just a ledger and pen where guests could write down the details of their consumption and have the hotel add it to the bill. This gave me a great idea for an opening conversational gambit with my interviewee. I would be Joey to Matthew Perry’s Chandler, in a brand new episode of Friends called The One Where They Get Locked Into A Honesty Bar.

Then Matthew Perry himself walked in, hunched, overcoated, shy, awkward and Eeyore-ish. Possibly not the day-time carousing type and very definitely not fun, knockabout Chandler Bing either. “Are you familiar with the concept of an honesty bar, Matthew?” I offered, hopefully. “I am not,” Perry said, looking around the room as if it was part of some cruel and elaborate stunt.

So, I explained. “What I am saying, Matthew, is that you and I could have a pretty good time in here… and no one would know!” I said in a playfully conspiratorial tone, not knowing back then the grisly extent of the actor’s problems.

“Oh,” said Perry flatly. “That’s probably not a good idea.”

And then it all came out: the addiction to painkillers and alcohol, the complex relationship with fame, the bouts of profound depression, the general struggle with being known as a funny guy, when the truth was actually a lot less amusing for him. This wasn’t the sarky, wisecracking, Monica-chasing guy from the TV sitting in front of me but Matthew Perry’s vulnerability and honesty were endearing. As something of a fellow Eyeore, I liked him enormously.

Looking back, some 20 years on, having read all about the “big terrible thing” in his painful and extraordinarily exposing autobiography, how Matthew Perry was an alcoholic with his first drink at the age of 14, I keep asking myself, “Could I have been any less sensitive?”

This was 2003. Perry, still just 34, was in London for a West End theatre run, playing Dan Shapiro in David Mamet’s drama Sexual Perversity in Chicago. His co-stars were Minnie Driver and his old AA buddy Hank Azaria who had also played Phoebe Buffay’s boyfriend in Friends for a while. With his career now entering the start of its post-Friends era — the massively popular sitcom’s final series had just been announced, its last episode to be aired a few months later — Perry seemed to be relishing a new, more seriously thespian stage in his professional life, separate from the loveable doofus character who makes jokes when he is “uncomfortable”.

“You seem like a guy who really enjoys being famous,” I posited. “Will you miss being in Friends?” Again, a hang-dog stare that seemed to say, “Dude, could you be any more stupid?”

“Actually, I really don’t enjoy that side of things,” said Perry, and gave an example. He was in the hotel elevator with fellow guests. One dropped a credit card from her purse and Perry bent down to retrieve it. “When I handed it to her, she suddenly recognised me and totally freaked out. This happens all the time. Several times a day. A simple and pleasant interaction with a fellow human completely ruined.” No wonder he liked to stay indoors.

The Friends level of fame was a different kind of fame, he explained, arguing, with some credence and little boast, that there was, quite possibly, no one on the planet as well-known and instantly recognisable as him and his fellow Central Perk denizens. “Everywhere I go, anywhere in the world, at any given time, I can turn on the TV and an episode of Friends will be showing,” he said, grimly. “And when one is over another one will follow. And another one after that.” Rolling episodes of Friends, broadcast in non-chronological order, could be particularly distressing for him. “It is hard to watch me bloated and puffy from drugs in one episode and then suddenly skinny and perky in the next,” he added, dolefully.

Perry told me that his problems had begun around Friends’ second series, when he’d taken time off to make a movie in Las Vegas and suffered a jet-ski accident, a doctor prescribing Vicodin to help with the pain. The same powerful and ruinous opioid that would eventually take the life of Prince and countless other Americans. Perry was, by his own admission, hooked with his very first pill. At one point, he was taking 55 Vicodin a day, heavy drinking being his pharmaceutical chaser of choice.

Still, he had some fond memories of London, having visited the city as a kid with his actor/male model father John Bennett Perry. “We stayed with a family in Richmond,” he recalled. “And it was in Richmond that I met the funniest kid ever. He spoke in this odd way, putting emphasis on different words for comedic, sarcastic effect. Like ‘Could you be any more annoying?’ That’s when the whole idea for Chandler’s character started to develop.” Chandler Bing was born in London... not New York!? This was a small and wonderful revelation, strangely not touched upon in his book.

With Friends having become the highest-paid characters in TV history — the actors were raking in $1 million per episode at the end of the run (they had started on just $22,500) — I wanted to know which of the cast had acted as its shop steward, brokering the deal. “Can’t tell you,” Perry said, a rare grin. “My money is on Courteney Cox,” I said. Perry smiled again, suggesting that I may have guessed correctly. The pay day had helped make Perry very rich indeed — he was said to be worth more than $120 million — but it clearly hadn’t made him particularly happy.

We talked about the changing relationships between the actors, how there had absolutely not been any off-set romance (this was a small fib —David Schwimmer and Jennifer Aniston had actually got close for a while). Perry revealed that his favourite episode was The One with Ross’s Wedding, the one set in London with Richard Branson as a cockney market trader and Jennifer Saunders as Ross’s mother-in-law.

He described the youthful thrill of filming the now iconic, water-fountain-and-umbrellas opening credits for the show. It was 1994 and he was just 25. “We were all so keen and excited to be there, splashing around in the water, doing endless takes, not caring how long into the night we were working or how cold and wet we were getting,” Perry told me. Then a few years later, the same scene was filmed again. “And this time things were very different. Our attitudes had kicked in and fame was playing a part. There was a lot of talk about the temperature of the water and the time we would have to spend in the water. Questions about on-set heaters, how dry clothes had to be on hand. In a short time, things had changed a lot.”

By now, the private snug was dishing out honesty in double shots, the always poker-faced actor excellent albeit sober company. He said goodbye, pulling up the lapels on his coat for anonymity, and got in a car to the Comedy Theatre for his evening performance.

Matthew Perry remains the nicest, funniest, saddest and most famous guy I definitely never got drunk with.